Unless you really crave those accordion-like ridges or consider Thanksgiving a failure without hearing that classic shplopping noise, you have no excuse for resorting to canned cranberry sauce.

Homemade cranberry sauce is wildly better than anything you can buy and it takes little time or effort to make. Plus, it's easy to take a basic cranberry sauce and doctor it up in so many delicious ways.

To help you along on your journey from can to greatness, we offer a base recipe for a delicious brown sugar and orange cranberry sauce, plus five ways of taking the flavor in crazy delicious directions. Don't want to use our base recipe? Don't. Use what's written on the bag of fresh cranberries, then use our flavorings.

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CRANBERRY SAUCE WITH VARIATIONS

Start to finish: 15 minutes

Servings: 8

12-ounce bag fresh cranberries

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup orange juice

Pinch of salt

In a medium saucepan over medium-high, combine the cranberries, brown sugar, orange juice and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the cranberries have popped and softened, 8 to 10 minutes.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and select one of the flavor combinations below:

— CHIPOTLE

Add 1 minced chipotle pepper and 1 tablespoon adobo sauce (from a can of chipotles in adobo). Allow to cool, then stir in 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh cilantro.